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Coronation Street actor Bill Roache said he has no attraction to youngsters as he denied allegations of indecent assault at Preston Crown Court.

Two sisters allege that they were indecently assaulted by the actor with one claiming he put his hands on her breast and in her underwear, while the other said he made her perform a sexual act on him in his car.

Coronation street actor Bill Roache. Credit: Dave Thompson/PA Wire

Roache was asked why the complainants, who, apart from the sisters, do not know each other, would make such allegations, some giving similar stories of what happened.

The defendant replied: "Look, I can only conjecture, I can guess and make all sorts of comments, only they know. It didn't happen."

"I had plenty of very attractive, wonderful partners. I love women and I love making love to women but it has to be with their full co-operation and full enjoyment. Youngsters have no attraction to me at all," he added.

"These allegations are not nice, not pleasant and I don't know why they have come forward."

An alleged rape victim of William Roache has been telling a jury that she suffered depression years after the alleged attack. The Coronation St actor, denies two counts of rape and five of indecent assault.

Giving evidence, the son of an alleged victim of Bill Roache has recalled a conversation with her about the time the Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith cases had emerged in 2012.

"I said something along the lines of 'why would you leave it until now'. Why would the victims leave it so long?" He said.

"There was a total change in her character. She sat forward and was trying to force her point across. She was explaining to me her feelings straightaway. She said 'it's easy for you to say that, times were totally different then to what they are now'."

Bill Roache arrives at court with his sons and daughter. Credit: Press Association

He said he "pushed and pushed" to discover what was on her mind but she would not say.On a later date she eventually told him who she was talking about.

"I was very angry," he said. "I had a few choice names to call him, I'm not going to lie."She kind of frustrated me more. She would not have it, she said he is not like Jimmy Savile. He is not a monster, he didn't beat me up, he didn't hurt me.

"It made my blood boil because she was kind of defending him, if that makes sense."I told her she had to go to the police.

"She really didn't want to. She was telling me straight away that some things are just best left alone in the past."

He told the jury he persisted in persuading her to go to the police and admitted he was like "a dog with a bone".

"I said there could be other people like this," he said.

"Sometimes it takes that one person to have the strength to come forward."

The woman has also described the second time she says Bill Roache assaulted her, a few months later.

This attack she described as lasting just a few minutes - again in complete silence. Roache overpowered her, she says, by pressing her against a wall with his arm.

"I was only tiny when I was in my teens," she told the court. "He was much bigger than me. I was trying to find a way out, but he was bigger than me. I couldn't manoeuvre myself at all. But he wasn't prepared to let me go until he was ready."